Running Through Corridors: Rob and Toby's Marathon Watch of Doctor Who (Volume 1: The 60s) (66 page)

T:
Vision on! Thank goodness for that. I’ve just done 13 episodes on the trot with barely a moving image, and now we have a whole 25 minutes of telesnap-free goodness. We should be thankful for the telesnaps – a decidedly odd creation that at least gives us some visual representation of those missing years. But The Wheel in Space episode three is a reminder that even when a Doctor Who instalment isn’t overwhelmingly brilliant, we should be grateful that it was recovered. I remember when this was amongst the holy of holies – a missing Doctor Who episode! – but not any more. We can properly enjoy and evaluate it.

The Cybermen are undergoing a rebirth in more ways than one – the first shot is a nifty special effect of an embryo Cyberman bursting out of a Cyber-ovary, and I like their costume redesign too. The masks are excellent (especially the tear drops and the lack of gaffer tape around the eyes and mouths), and I applaud “sleekness” over “baggy” in the Cyber-designs. It’s a pity, then, that the direction is a bit flat – we don’t have any of the trademark visuals of a Camfield or Martinus here – and the decision not to use music gives everything a rather disjointed feel, as we have oddly silent establishing shots, or scenes augmented by Radiophonic sound. This occasionally works and comes across as expressionistically weird, but it’s in spite of the visuals, not because of them. Basically, the “weirdness” here doesn’t seem deliberate, and is more jarring than disorientating.

And while I take your point about the death of Rudkin, the only thing that’s really wrong with it is what Kevork Malikyan does with his hands. Being zapped by Cybermats is bound to have an effect, but his clawed fingers look silly – I think he’s trying to suggest that his hands are now paralysed, but it just doesn’t come off. It’s entirely possible that he thought this move was okay in the studio, then watched appalled at home when it didn’t turn out quite the way he thought it would. (I can’t name an actor who hasn’t experienced that, myself included.) Given that the Cybermats were always going to seem pretty rubbish no matter what Malikyan did, the shot of the little creatures surrounding him and the close-up on his echoingly screaming mouth are actually pretty good. What follows Rudkin’s demise is a bit odd – the script tries to give Duggan some reason not to report “Billy Bug” right away (everyone thinks he’s daft for liking space fauna, so purportedly they’d all take the piss if he mentioned it), but in a high-security establishment that’s been a victim of sabotage, it’s very unlikely he’d keep schtum due to some potential social awkwardness. That’s no disrespect meant, by the way, to Kenneth Watson – for my money, he gives the best guest performance of the lot. Duggan seems natural and unforced, and his self-flagellation at Rudkin’s death, followed by an all too real “Oh what’s the use of talking...”, is terrifically empathic and believable.

Otherwise, as you say, there’s a bit of playful banter here. I love that Troughton wakes up grumpy and automatically wants to cut clever-clogs Zoe down to size, and whilst your joy at the three-way banter between Leo, Tanya and Enrico is quite sweet, it’s also a bit tasteless seeing as they’re jollying about immediately after the brutal slaying of one of their colleagues. My favourite line of this episode, though? The Doctor saying, “Logic, my dear Zoe, merely enables one to be wrong with authority.” One suspects that’s what Whitaker himself said to many a poor script editor who had the audacity to question the nonsensical nature of his stories.

April 15th

The Wheel in Space episode four

R:
Yesterday I took a pot shot at the new Cyberman voices. But now I’m back on soundtrack, what strikes me is how little they’re used. Compare them to the Cybermen of The Moonbase or The Tenth Planet, who were so chatty that at times you felt they could be employed as speakers at a rotary club. These ones hide in the shadows, and kill without warning or explanation. The death of crewman Chang (more on him in a minute) is so abrupt I had to rewind the tape to check it had really happened – he’s killed, then passionlessly dumped in the waste disposal, which is about as callous as you can get. Dear old Bill Duggan, played so amiably by Kenneth Watson, is in one moment cheerfully whistling as he sets about his work, and in the next losing his entire personality forever. I’ll not make a secret of it – I’ve been a bit disappointed by the Cybermen so far in Doctor Who. They’re a terrific concept, these emotionless men, wanting to convert the rest of us to their example – but in practice they’ve always been a bit too chatty and, therefore,
reasonable.
Here at last they seem as cold and merciless as they should be.

I’m not saying I couldn’t wish they were in a faster-paced story, mind you. This week, we’ve got a sequence in which Zoe explains to an amazed Jamie the scientific magic that is the tape recorder. (It’s a bit too late for this sort of thing, isn’t it? And he didn’t even blink last week when sabotaging a laser cannon!) And Jarvis Bennett is the latest in a line of Troughton base commanders to go round the bend. Michael Turner at least decides to stop shouting a la Victor Maddern at the moment his brain finally cracks, though – there’s something at once very funny and rather unnerving about a man walking around his station grinning and cheerily telling everyone that there’s nothing wrong.

And then there’s Chang! As played by Peter Laird. Yes, you’re right, the accent is shameful. But I worked with Peter Laird a few years ago in theatre; he’s a terrific comic actor, and a thoroughly nice chap. When I first started working as a dramatist, I put my foot in things a few times on my first productions – some director would cast a Doctor Who actor in one of my plays, and I’d excitedly break the ice at the readthrough by reciting their credits at them. Not a good idea. They’d usually think I was a weirdo, and avoid me for the rest of the run. By the time I met Peter I’d learned my lesson, and so only revealed that I knew of his dubious Oriental background whilst we were both safely merry at the opening night party. “Oh yes,” he said blithely, “I used to play a lot of Chinese back in the sixties. I got quite used to being made slanty-eyed with sticky tape.” Peter was very good in my Ayckbourn directed comedy; he’s rather less effective when required to get his “l”s and “r”s mixed up on a futuristic space station. It makes you wince to hear this Caucasian actor try to yellow his speech – but it’s a sign of the times, and leaves me wondering just how awkward it would have been now had Innes Lloyd jumped at Patrick Troughton’s initial suggestion to black up and wear a turban as the Doctor. Would we be able to watch
any
of his stories nowadays without shuddering? Would they be able to release them on DVD and put them in HMV shops? When Doctor Who Confidential announced the casting of Matt Smith back in January, and rattled through his ten predecessors in the role, would they have coughed with embarrassment over Doctor No. 2, and jumped straight to Pertwee?

T:
You’ve pretty much covered it, so I’ll just add that Laird isn’t even doing a Chinese accent very well – at one point he sounds like Bronson Pinchot’s character on Perfect Strangers.

I’m noticing a pattern, though... you asked after the previous episode for the Cybermen to slow down (and/or repeat themselves), and in the recap, their speech is noticeably more measured and not as fast. And then, in our next scene with them, they repeat their instructions! Someone out there is listening to you, Rob. (If only you’d asked for The Web of Fear episode four to come back to the archives.) Not only that, but you’re getting all hot for Gemma Corwyn and – what luck! – she turns out to be a widow. You’re a bit charmed today – have you been rubbing any magic lanterns recently?

And while I agree that Michael Turner is generally effective when he’s being quiet and distracted, I think you’re being a bit harsh on Victor Maddern by comparing them. The two parts are written rather differently, and Turner gets more interesting things to do, so it’s easier to pull off. He’s terribly unconvincing when pitching his performance up (not a criticism you can level at Maddern – he’s shouty, but it’s a
good
shouty), and he sounds like a pirate when he talks about morale never having been better. Add to this mix Elton’s weird accent (which brings to mind Reece Shearsmith’s comically appalling attempts to read F Scott Fitzgerald in The League of Gentlemen) and this has made for one of the most bizarre audio experiences I’ve ever had. At least the programme-makers had the common sense to kill Chang – I don’t think I could have faced a hypnotised mock-Chinaman.

Otherwise, this trots along amiably enough – I like Flannigan offering to take just a five-minute break before knuckling down to work again, and how the Doctor wants a coffee and is given it in pellet form, in a scene that looks geared to remind us that we’re in space. Meanwhile, the newly pardoned Duggan looks all set to become the Doctor’s main helper until he’s unceremoniously brainwashed and rather callously zapped. I rather liked Duggan, he was nice – couldn’t Leo have just knocked him out instead? Bye bye, Duggan.

And then there’s poor old Zoe – she’s not exactly likeable yet (but this is clearly deliberate), and she ends this episode being left out of the action, making us feel a bit sorry for her. She’s desperate to help, to join in, but none of the other kids will let her because she’s done well in school, is slightly annoying and awkward at social interaction...

Oh my God. I’ve just described myself.

That’s it. That’s the secret. Zoe is a Doctor Who fan.

The Wheel in Space episode five

R:
So. Let’s get this straight. The Cybermen’s invasion plan is as follows. They contrive to make a star go nova, creating a meteorite storm that will threaten the Wheel. To destroy the meteorites the crew will be obliged to use the laser cannon, and use up essential supplies of the mineral bernalium. The Cybermen send Cybermats to the Wheel, which will eat the bernalium. Requiring further stock, the humans will fetch bernalium from the nearby spaceship, but the Cybermen will be ready, hiding in the bernalium crates, and gain access to the Wheel. From which they can launch the inevitable invasion of Earth (both of them). All as clear as mud, and begging only one question. Are we meant to take any of that seriously?

It’s as contrived as can be, of course. And I’m not being fair to it, sticking it on the computer screen like that, rudely staring up at me in all its aching daftness. Because the uncovering of the plot has a different effect on screen. You realise this is like one of those Rube Goldberg inventions – when a series of increasingly convoluted machine parts operate in order to achieve a very simple solution. The effect is usually comic – whether it be the bizarre means by which Wilf Lunn would crack an egg on BBC kids show Jigsaw, or Doc Brown would feed his dog in Back to the Future. But here, it suggests one of two things. Either that the Cybermen are so enslaved to logic that they’re fiendishly clever at being able to harness so many variables – which is strikingly cold and alien. Or that they’re rather stupid, and to quote a later comment about the Master, would get giddy if they tried to walk in a straight line. Take your pick. But suddenly realising in this episode that we’re at the heart of such a staggeringly complex plot does cause the brain to flip – it’s dizzying. And anything in Doctor Who that does peculiar things to the brain needs to be cherished.

Someone else enslaved to logic is Zoe Heriot. She’s a much darker character than I’d ever realised. Whitaker’s script rather brilliantly only
hints
that she comes from a pitiless totalitarian regime, where young children are taken and brainwashed so that they can come out the other end supergeniuses – capable of holding a huge amount of information, but not the wherewithal to respond to it emotionally. She’s just another Cyberman. And it’s telling that the crew of the Wheel are seen to recoil somewhat from her – just as, years later, those who work on the Sandminer are uncomfortable around the chiselled cool beauty of the Robots of Death. Zoe recognises this. She struggles against it. In a moving scene, she asks Jamie what possible use she can now be for, when all her logical training comes up short against a problem she couldn’t have anticipated. She’s a robot wanting to be a human being – and what makes Wendy Padbury’s performance so powerful is that even in the recognition of this she
still
doesn’t give in to emotion, she’s still obliged to wrestle with the dilemma as if it’s a particularly taxing game of sudoku.

T:
So,
finally
everyone is coming together to fight the Cybermen – in episode five of a six-parter. Oh well, there are some brilliantly tense scenes here. The first has the Doctor and Jamie relying on the help of people who aren’t even in the same room to send a killer sound wave to destroy the Cybermats. It’s quite nailbiting (possibly because we’ve no video, and so can’t see the little metal critters). Their deaths take forever, no doubt because the production team wished to show off their cutting-edge radio controlled ‘roaches. And whereas you complained before about the indistinct Cyber-voices, what about the Cyber-lightbulb they report to? He’s indecipherable.

The biggest disquiet I have about this episode, however, is the Doctor. He rather childishly forces a reluctant Jamie to go to the Silver Carrier to retrieve the time-vector generator, claiming Jamie was responsible for misplacing it (he wasn’t). He responds with testy petulance when Leo berates him for putting Jamie, Zoe
and
Gemma into peril, and he’s uncharacteristically callous – so much so that poor, brave Jamie must selflessly try to stop Zoe from risking herself. In The Evil of the Daleks, the Doctor’s plan
obliged
him to be shady and manipulative; here, he’s just a git. And then there’s his reaction to Gemma’s suggestion that they give Jarvis electro-convulsive therapy: “I wouldn’t advise moving him.” Yeah, because sending electric currents gushing through Jarvis’ brain would be okay, but moving him is a no-no. I suppose we can be a little accommodating based upon the year in which this was written, but it’s really disconcerting to hear such an awful technique talked about so blithely.